Lestardo’s Crab House

Still great after all these years.
Dive bar with cold beer and terrific crabs. After living a decade in LA and 3 years in the ATL Lestardos is still a destination place for me.
Ok, the bathrooms haven’t been cleaned since 1974, and the clientele ranges from well-​heeled to no shoes. Décor is bargain basement at best, but if you’re all about the steamed crabs Lestardos won’t disappoint.
Country music overhead and the Phillies on the corner TVs.
Lestardos is a reason I always look forward to coming through New Castle.
PS update from my previous review — the old PennJersey is now Pep Boys.

Very Friendly Staff, Very tasty Mixed Drinks, Nice Selection of Beer, Nice Crowd, It’s a lil divey, Good selection of food AND a Great place to get Delicious Crabs!~

Wow what a dump. Scary place in the middle of no where. Walked in and walked out. Didn’t want to get caught in the middle of a kitchen nightmare episode. Don’t bring your family!

Discovered this on Unilocal.driving home to NJ from DC. Great local place with fantastic no frills foods and zero ambiance, loved it!

True crab eaters: STOP HERE!!! If you are a true crab eater… you only need a clean table, covered in paper, and a couple dozen on the table. My entire family: husband, parents, cousins & spouses, kids, and friends) love this place. We drive from all over to meet at Lestardos. Great crabs, great drinks, great service… all year around!

First off, the food we had was great. Loved the crab, they were seasoned and cooked well. I liked the papered tables and being able to smash the crab with a wooden mallet. My girlfriend raved about the mussels. Oddly, the steamed little-​neck clams arrived in a foiled-​over, green plastic bucket that small children might use to play at the beach. The clams were clean and fresh though, so I can’t really complain.
That being said, Lestardo’s was perhaps one of the filthiest places I’ve eaten in a long time. I like a good dive, but this… The men’s room was absolutely foul. It looked, and smelled, like it hadn’t been cleaned in a long, long, long while. Luckily the door closed tight so that the smell didn’t bleed out into the dining room. The dining room in general screams of neglect and needs a whole lot of TLC. If not for these issues, I would have given 4 stars.
At the end of the day, the food WAS good though. Based on that alone, I might very well go back to give them another shot. Hopefully by then they’ll at least use a bit of old fashioned elbow-​grease and clean up a bit. This place could be great if they give the dining room some much needed TLC.

This place has awesome crabs as well as other great seafood. The servers are very friendly & recognize their repeat customers. The only thing I would improve is a little face lift as this place has been around for decades. It has a bar attached to it inside as well

The crabs are very good but the rest of the stuff we ordered — mussels, crab dips, etc are super salty. Also, the chopped garlic they used are definitely not fresh. They use those that are in the plastic container.
We went there for lunch on a Saturday and we are the only people there and it took forever. The waitress is very friendly so we didn’t complain.

First crab house experience… Loved it. Had the shrimp special scampi fried and steamed all really good though the fried didn’t do the shrimp justice. Had to wait 10 min for next crab delivery to get jumbos. So we had some soup… This is not to be missed my wife had the Maryland crab I had bisque soo good!!! Then the waitress brought the crabs and showed us how to eat them. Doesn’t get better to me.

I ordered take-​out crabs from here, i believe the medium #1s. They were just ok, specifically they were a little small and didn’t seem as fresh as other crabs that I’ve had. I went July 4^th weekend so maybe I was expecting a little better quality. Also ordered the fried oysters, small and burnt, and I love fried oysters so that says a lot. Me and my sister ordered drinks as the bar as we waited and they were nice and strong!

You have to get the right waitress to get really good service if youre not one of the rugged locals sitting at the bar. Through the whole meal, my table nor the table next to us got any refills on water while the bartender chatted it up with the familiars. Oh well. One dollar cheeseburgers on fridays between twelve and four is nice, right?

The food was awesome! The crab dip was accompanied by fired tortillas which makes awesome chips, the crab, the service priceless!

Where do i start?!? The décor; no other words to describe it… the place is a dump, def falls into the dive category. It was clean but everything needs to be updated. Holes in the walls and very apparent the last time they painted (years and years ago) they didnt use edge tape. Vents were old and dirty, visible dust in the vents and the rug needed serious cleaning.
The food, we had the crab soup, it was very good. Very thick and hearty, full of veggies and lots of real crab. The soup might be worth stopping for.
Our kid got chicken fingers and fries, the fingers were very overcooked and dry.
I ordered the shrimp scampi, it came with fries and cole slaw. The slaw was ok, decent flavor but slightly on the dry side for my preference. Fries were under seasoned, or not seasoned at all. I needed to add my own salt and pepper, they also had a shaker of old bay on each table, that was good. On to my shrimp, it was bad, very bad. The shrimp were long overcooked and were very rubbery. As for the scampi sauce, it was all garlic. I couldnt taste any butter, but the vast amount of garlic prohibited me from tasting anything else. Do not order this!
My girl ordered the crab cakes, and these were very good! Full of real crab, no fake crab that we could see. She received 2 big cakes and they were light and delicious! Also came with fries and slaw.
We were the only people in there and service was slow! Waitress was friendly, was just busy doing other stuff. I think there was just her and the cook in the whole place.

Very good crabs legs and boneless chicken bites. The price was reasonable. We chose spicy Cajun seasoning on the crabs which was very good but I wish it had less of a lemon flavor. The atmosphere was friendly but I can see where this place could be considered not appealing by its appearance. I would definitely eat here again.

The garlic crabs were amazing. The staff was very friendly. Drinks were reasonable. We will definitely be returning for more. Loved it!

Dive bar? Yes. Questionable cleanliness? Yep. Best fresh crab in the area? Absolutely.

It’s been many many many years since I ate here (at least 10!) Coming in for dinner with a couple of friends, we sat down to a mostly empty restaurant. I think the crabs might be hard to get or something like that, else this place should be packed. It’s not a fancy sitdown. It’s got brown paper covered tables with paper towel rolls, perfect for eating crabs!
Jumbos weren’t available so we settled for medium ones. Good flavor, but I was looking forward to the jumbos. Oh well… maybe next time when I’m in town again…

I was searching around for a great seafood place. Besides the usual red lobster. I have read many reviews. Did my research with menu selection, positive feedback, location. Everything hit me a+++ all across the board. At first glance at the outside location. It looked like a flimsy bar. Not anything attractive at all. But once ur inside. Very open area, lots of tvs, great service. The menu was very easy to read along with ordering. The food is mainly why u come here. It is unbelievably good. Everything from appetizers, entrees, to deserts. Well worth the price. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a great meal.

When a group of my co-​workers mentioned this dive bar was now open on Fridays for lunch and they had a buck burger special I was sold!
Upon entry the place was dark and empty aside from a few straggly looking fellas at the bar. Not to be deterred we chose a center table covered in brown butcher paper. The tables were also accessorized with a dollar store roll of paper towels and plastic waste basket, nifty!
Perusing the drink menu the Crab Relaxer caught my eye so I asked the bartender/​waitress what it was. She responded she wasn’t sure because it wasn’t ordered much and had to refer back to her book at the bar. Turned out it has coconut rum, pineapple, grenadine and another rum in it and it is the perfect delicious fruity, wish I was on the beach drink!
Of course we ordered the dollar burgers and since it’s got crab house in the name, the crab dip starter. The cheese burgers do not come with anything so we also ordered a side of fries. The dip came out first with thick chips that were more chewy then crisp. The dip had a nice amount of crab meat but seemed to be on the watery side. The fries made a better vessel for the dip over the chips.
The burgers had a nice char-​grilled taste and were infinitely better than a fast food chain.
My co-​workers have since went back without me and said glimpses of the dirty bathrooms and kitchen have turned them off to ordering food in the future but they would not be opposed to going for drinks.
I had no adverse effects from the burger and didn’t glimpse the kitchen or bathroom ugliness so I plan to go back and try the all you can eat crabs one night.

So we bumped into this restaurant as we headed back to NY from Maryland. The crabs are even nicer than what we had in Ocean City! They are fresh and juicy and the prices are fair.
We will be visiting again soon.